Valentine HUGO (1890-1968). Autograph manuscript signed, Il y a trente ans, November 1953; 36 pages in-4 on fine blue paper. Moving memories of Raymond Radiguet. This article appeared in La Parisienne, in December 1953, on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of Radiguet's death. The manuscript bears some corrections, and was used for printing. She opens her text with three quotations from Radiguet on death, and she recalls the year 1923, which began so well with the publication of Le Diable au Corps in March. As early as October 1922, Radiguet announced the publication of this book and the completion of the new one [Le Bal du Comte d'Orgel]: "If you knew how much fun it is to write novels, much more than to read them. The one I'm about to tell you will have four hundred pages, it lacks only thirty". For four years, he "had been our friend, our young brother"; she sees him again, sleeping at their place, "at the end of the long evenings spent at each other's houses, or at the Boeuf sur le Toit". Jean Hugo describes the 16 year old boy he met on June 8, 1919, during the reading of Apollinaire's poems. He had hair that was too long and a big, disdainful mouth. He looked like a cold Hindu. He didn't have that dandy affectation, (well-coiffed hair, bow ties, and monocle) that he had to keep until the end." He is taller and stronger now, but his expressions have not changed: "His look, which could be so childish and laughing in the relaxation of the morning, was more often than not grave and haughty; it sometimes became, in the evening, the look of a man who has lived a whole life in seven years, tired, disillusioned, sometimes fierce. In the morning, the child would reappear. After the naive jokes, came heavier words: "No one was spared in these terrible adolescent judgments. And then, all of a sudden, lighting up this severe face, a great frank laugh, full of bright teeth, a look of sunny troubled water, a relaxation of a young animal that was finally shaking, brought back between us the calm abandonment, the restful purity of a fraternal and innocent contact. [We loved and admired her very much and we absolutely approved of our friend Jean Cocteau giving her "during her life", "the illustrious place that her death would earn her". She quotes his letters, notably one written from London where he was staying with Cocteau. She evokes these evenings of April 1923, where they made speak "a small black pedestal table with flowers and gilding". The two Hugos, Cocteau, Radiguet, Georges Auric, and Paul Morand took part in these sessions and listened to the terrifying answers: "I am death," the table said to Cocteau. In May 1923, Radiguet won the Prix du Nouveau Monde and they all resumed their hectic lives together. "Jean Cocteau, Darius Milhaud, a few rare friends and ourselves were the only ones to be moved by certain disturbing signs. The summer at Le Piquey was spent "in a certain enchantment, a malaise hovered however, an inexpressible malaise, both physical and moral". Radiguet corrects the proofs of the Bal du Comte d'Orgel, Auric plays the piano. They leave each other on September 13 without knowing that it is the last time they will kiss. Back to the farmhouse of Fourques, Valentine feels the symptoms of a fever which will turn out to be typhoid and will cause a peritonitis, from which she is operated on December 10th. It was there that she learned that Radiguet, suffering from the same fever, had been taken to a clinic in a desperate state. A telegram from Darius Milhaud announces his death on December 12. Despair is everywhere. Radiguet's last words: "I am afraid... in two days, I will be shot by God's soldiers"... Gabrielle Chanel took care of the health expenses, Misia Sert of the funeral expenses, and Jean Cocteau wrote to Valentine: "Forgive me. I try, for mom, not to die, it is all "... She is sorry that he died alone, without a friendly presence: " This last gift of the poet misses cruelly the memory of the genius child born in the fire, died in the ice "...